A Cry Of Rage

I notice that next weekend, Friday night brings us the annual  conscience  salving marathon that is “Children in Need"

Mercifully we'll be out of the country in Budapest.

As individuals in this country we are great givers. We raise millions and that is to our credit. Yet as a nation from my recent experiences I can't but help think that we have ceased to care.

I have spent a lot of time in Yorkshire recently. My mother as had two admissions to hospital. Both were nightmares in their own way. On one occasion she was discharged without anyone bothering to inform me, so she was sat by her bed fully dressed waiting to go home and yet no one knew she was expecting to be collected. On the second occasion although there was a bed waiting for her from 4.30 in the afternoon in the admissions ward, we were shunted into A&E  and delayed there for almost 3 hours.  Believe me they didn't get away with it quietly.

And yet, as my other half pointed out in his excellent blog last week (http://www.richardhowle.co.uk/Richard_Howles_Website/Home/Entries/2011/11/6_Autumn.html),  why should we have to scream and shout just in order to get people to do things. Why is it only the squeaky wheel gets the grease? I know there's an oil crisis, but there's really no excuse for the “computer says no" mentality that seems to pervade social care in this country. This is Blair's legacy. The latest round of cuts haven't even begun to hit in as yet. This is the payback from the get rich quick sell out that was New Labour and nowhere has it hit harder than in the old Labour heartlands such as the Soviet Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire

My mother's only crime is to be depressed. Depression is an illness. At some point in the late 60s the doctor put her on to antidepressant tablets.The housewives palliative. I knew nothing of this until the tablets were withdrawn in 2007 when the family GP at that point said “They've stopped making that particular drug".  We went through several months of trial and error, mostly error as they tried to medicate with some other tablet. Since then we've had a bit of a roller coaster existence in time to manage her downs over the last 4 years. Other than this, she is remarkably fit and able for 89 years - 90 in ten days, and a credit to the generation who fought a war for us.

Because she is fit and able it means, of course, that she gets no help whatsoever. Rotherham's policy these days is one of “self-help". By self-help, they mean pay for it yourself, or if you can't afford to pay for it, do it yourself!

We've managed to get an assessment and she is to be given some enabling care. This is care put in place for up to six weeks to get her to care for herself - Self care…there we go again! This has meant that the carers she has had and likes can't do it and for six weeks she has to have Council people. If they assess that she needs ongoing care then they will make a payment towards the cost of Crossroads who we can then have back. If not then I have to continue to fund Crossroads.

Crossroads are angels. Brilliant and beyond belief in how they respond to our needs and crisis. It says it all that the social services' first move is to remove a care programme that works and is proven.

I have spoken to the head of Social services. A woman who seems not at ease on the phone. Perhaps this is the reason she finds it so hard to return calls. Perhaps she also can;t type - that might explain the inability to reply to e mails. I spoke to the Director of Social services. He assured me that I would be called on several occasions. I wasn't. Only one guy, Tom Sweetman, who more than lives up to his name, returned calls and did his best to get things moving and penetrate the morass of bureaucracy that prevents real care reaching real people.

I met a very nice social worker in the hospital who tried his best to cope with my rage and tears at the frustration of the situation. It's not nice sitting opposite your mum in a hospital chair and seeing her sitting there frail and bewildered and trying to tell her that she may have to go into a home for a few weeks. The social worker then said that as she didn't meet critical care needs, that would have to be self funded. Well done Rotherham - no responsibility again. The social workers are castrated at every turn. Emasculated and left relying on their personal skills and ability to exude care and empathy without having the resources to dispense anything useful. I suppose eventually they go home for so many nights frustrated that eventually they give up. Such a shame because at heart they are fabulous people - but they too are begin screwed by the managers.

Perhaps the management think that if  they don't return phone calls people will give up. I am sure lots do. Perhaps they think that if they don't return peoples calls, people will just die. I am sure some do.

As I read this morning of the threatened redundancies among wounded soldiers, and as I stood yesterday at 11am on the 11th of the 11th of the 11th for my two minutes silence and thought of how my mothers efforts have been repaid, silently I cried out in rage.